Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hey all, I finally unlocked the billfold and bought a piece of gear. I got one of the Breedlove travel guitars, the C20T. Unlike the Baby Taylor I bought my daughter, this one doesn't try to have regular guitar tuning with a short scale neck, but rather represents the neck from the fifth fret down. So the open strings are the same intervals as a regular guitar but in open position (not open tuning), but it is A to A.
However while I live in that area of the neck, it isn't as easy as I might have thought to transpose on the fly. So I have to do some math urrrggg, and make a chart. Unless someone else has already....
P.S. I found little info on the 'net, but some referred to it as high-strung' and Nashville tuning and I don't believe it is either.

Do the math and make the chart, it'll be good for you! One of the best things I ever did was sit down about 15 years ago and chart out every note on the bass.

Besides, the math is easy... just think: up one string, same fret. A G is really a C. A C is really an F. An F is really a Bb. A Bb is really an Eb. And so on and so forth, until you get back around to where you started. The chart that you will have created is called the Circle of Fifths and is incredibly helpful for understanding western harmony.


I can't resist typing it out, let me see if I can obsure it...
G C F Bb Eb Ab C# F# B E A D G

Another way to look at it is that it is tuned like a regular guitar but capoed at the 5th fret.

By the way, for all who don't know, I am an authorized breedlove dealer - so dont buy breedloves without checking my price first! Believe me I am kind. I am doing a cool custom built 9 string for a guy now and a custom built mandolin for someone else.

Django wrote:this one doesn't try to have regular guitar tuning with a short scale neck, but rather represents the neck from the fifth fret down.

Not to pick nits, but I think you mean up, not down.

So the open strings are the same intervals as a regular guitar but in open position (not open tuning), but it is A to A.
However while I live in that area of the neck, it isn't as easy as I might have thought to transpose on the fly. So I have to do some math urrrggg, and make a chart. Unless someone else has already....

Wouldn't the chart for this guitar be the same as the one for your standard guitar, except the first 5 frets are eliminated? Said another way, the nut becomes the 5th fret on your standard guitar, so all your notes and chords are going to be in the same place, just 5 frets closer to the nut. The only math you would need to do is subtract 5 from everything.

P.S. I found little info on the 'net, but some referred to it as high-strung' and Nashville tuning and I don't believe it is either.

Nashville tuning is where strings 1 and 2 are E and B as usual. The other 4 are one octave higher than on a standard tune. The Stones use some Nashville tuning and my son and I wanted to screw around with it some. But then we found that you can't use a standard set of strings for it, and the local guitar center didn't have a set for Nashville tuning. That is as far as we got on the project, but we still want to try it someday.

Mick wrote:Nashville tuning is where strings 1 and 2 are E and B as usual. The other 4 are one octave higher than on a standard tune. The Stones use some Nashville tuning and my son and I wanted to screw around with it some. But then we found that you can't use a standard set of strings for it, and the local guitar center didn't have a set for Nashville tuning. That is as far as we got on the project, but we still want to try it someday.

This made me sit up and go "huh? HOW??" (and I thought you might have been referring to Keef's oft-used Open E tuning- low>high; E-B-E-G♯-B-E) until I Wiki'ed "nashville tuning" and found the part you left out: "This is usually achieved by replacing the standard-gauge (EAD&G) strings with the equivalent octave string from a 12-string set." Very curious as to what recordings might feature this... any good examples?

tigerstrat wrote:This made me sit up and go "huh? HOW??" (and I thought you might have been referring to Keef's oft-used Open E tuning- low>high; E-B-E-G♯-B-E) until I Wiki'ed "nashville tuning" and found the part you left out: "This is usually achieved by replacing the standard-gauge (EAD&G) strings with the equivalent octave string from a 12-string set."

Dude, lots of good green going up in smoke on the board today. See this part of my post:

Mick wrote:But then we found that you can't use a standard set of strings for it,

So I don't see how I left anything out. We have screwed around some with Open G tuning on the acoustic, I have never messed with open E, but it looks interesting. It should have been obvious too, but I guess I never thought about it enough.

Very curious as to what recordings might feature this... any good examples?

I don't remember off the top of my head, since this was a couple of years ago and we never actually played (or tried to play) any of the stuff since getting the right strings looked like a pain in the ass and we had millions of other roads we wanted to go down etc. I still have the RS book that we were using, if you are really interested I can look in it again and find what had caught our eye.

Guys, The Nashville tuning uses the high strings from a set of 12-string acoustic strings.
If you buy a set of 12-string guitar strings, you will have the strings for the "Nashville" tuning (and a set of standard 6-string strings).
It sounds cool, but is a bit of a novelty. Alot of female Country Music stars like Dolly Parton have used this tuning for that real purty chime-ee acoustic sound.

I have played the Breedlove travel guit. The high A thing makes it the best sounding travel guit I have heard.

You know, Pete B is correct on the strings. Obviously the guy I spoke to at GC didn't know what the F he was talking about. If my son wants to play with Nashville tuning, now we know what to do. Thanks!

Mick, I guess I might have missed that part the 1st time reading but I was curious as to the specifics, so yea I was missing a part.

Dolly Parton! That gives me a good clue as to the sound for sure.

The open E is one I just started messing with for Keefisms, for an upcoming recording project I am doing this month. It makes "Gimme Shelter" fairly leap off of the strings!

Most famous song done with "Nashville" tuning: Wild Horses

Yep 'Wild Horses'. Thanks for the repies everyone.
I thought that the Nashville tuning question might bring out Pete. Good job.
I have the notes, circle of fifths, the counting schemes etc. down. Though the simple explanation of referencing the next string higher at the same fret was pretty cool. Counting 5 down ie: G, F#, E, D, C isn't what I would call on the fly, for me anyway.
I guess what I mean is that the regular moves and positions I comp in have to be updated with this new guitar. A 'G' chord in the first position is actually a 'C'. If I wish to play one of the 10,000 songs people know in 'G', then I don't have a I chord lower voiced than the IV chord at the lower end of the fretboard. Some 'rootless' chord forms will have to be a 'by ear' proposition. But I'm diggin' the new axe (hatchet?).

Django wrote: I guess what I mean is that the regular moves and positions I comp in have to be updated with this new guitar.

Hey if you are just playing the guitar by yourself as something to be able to jam on during your general day to day travels or whatever, you can still play in the Keys and positions you usally play it in.
fwiw, I bet if you put a Nashville Tuning set (the octave-up strings from an acoustic 12-string set) on your Breedlove Travel guit, you could string it up to standard pitch no problem.

Side note: I see there are a fair amount of "Nashville Tuning" related vids on YouTube.